


Holy Union

by quixotesque



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Reconciliation, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 15:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14897165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixotesque/pseuds/quixotesque
Summary: T’Challa locks eyes with N’Jadaka as N’Jadaka shouts out, “Siziyagquma!” and the rest of his tribe erupt in a fierce echo of his yell.N’Yami, head of the Lioness’s followers, watches T’Challa, her gold-studded face impersonal, but then she has never been particularly familiar with him.“The tribe of Sekhmet,” she says in her low, smoky voice, “will challenge for the throne today.”





	Holy Union

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Staubengel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Staubengel/gifts).



> For Staubengel, whose magical brain offered up an amazing and inspiring prompt. THANK YOU SO MUCH. <3 This story was an absolute treat to write. Also, a massive, massive thank you to the amazing organisers of the Killchalla Wishlist, Mimi and Daan, for all their hardwork and for creating the exchange. 
> 
> I have - very clumsily and very incorrectly, no doubt - added some Xhosa, so please hover over the words to see translations. (Anyone who knows Xhosa is free to correct what I’ve cobbled together.) I’ve included the translations at the end notes, as well, in case they don’t turn up for some reason. Also, re: ages, T’Challa and Erik are younger and closer in age in this story, 26 and 24 respectively. As indicated in the summary, they're also not related. 
> 
> I'll save further rambling for the end notes and just say I hope you enjoy reading! :)

T’Challa isn’t surprised when it happens. The years have been leading to this moment, but he’d still held a vague hope they could have avoided it.

The rush of the rapids is loud all around him, the water at his feet gentler, softly lapping. He stands in front of all the tribes, ready for judgment. Their king to be or not to be.  

Zuri asks, “Is there any member of royal blood who will challenge for the throne?”  

The Border Tribe declines. The Merchant Tribe, River, Mining, they all decline.

And then Zuri turns to the tribe of Sekhmet.

T’Challa locks eyes with N’Jadaka as N’Jadaka shouts out, " _Siziyagquma!_ " and the rest of his tribe erupt in a fierce echo of his yell.  
  
N’Yami, head of the Lioness’s followers, watches T’Challa, her gold-studded face impersonal, but then she has never been particularly familiar with him.

“The tribe of Sekhmet,” she says in her low, smoky voice, “will challenge for the throne today.”

A murmur rises at once, the dissonant hum sweeping through their audience. T’Challa can pick out little Shuri demanding an explanation, their mother hushing her not unkindly.

Scars on full display, khopesh swords in hand, and a lioness’s mask resting atop his braided hair, N’Jadaka stands beside N’Yami, the resemblance between aunt and nephew discernible from the shape of their eyes, their nose, the bulk of their corded muscles. The provocation in their arched eyebrows.  

Sekhmet’s followers wear varying shades of gold and red and they stand together before T’Challa like the last glowing vestiges of a sunset. The delicate, gauzy fabric of their clothes is mesh-like in some places and slashed open in others, offering teasing hints of the dark skin and strong physiques beneath.

Piercings dot their bodies, little winks of flashing light set against their many raised scars. Only N’Jadaka, their chosen fighter, lacks his piercings, his cheeks adorned with crimson stripes instead, wet-looking as fresh blood. The paint sits also at his midsection as a swirling rosetta pattern around his navel: the mark of the tribe’s most favored warrior. His arms and neck are bright with the smooth, polished curls of gold vambraces and thick collar, legs clad in maroon trousers that disappear into dark brown boots.

“Our champion, N’Jadaka, _intliziyo isizwe sakwa Sekhmet_ ,” says N’Yami.

N’Jadaka steps forward brusquely into the water and swipes a khopesh sword through the air, the tip aimed towards T’Challa.

“It’s time for change,” he says bluntly. His dark gaze is brittle, black ice over turbulent waters. “For both Wakanda and the world.”

T’Challa tightens his grip on the shaft of his short spear, remembering when those eyes had been gentle, the light in them playful and not glacial. “I accept your challenge, N’Jadaka,” he says flatly, and calls to the Dora Milaje to descend from the steps.

Okoye leads them, swift, mouth pursed in thinly veiled disapproval towards N’Jadaka. Ordering his own fellow warriors forward, N’Jadaka spares T’Challa one last aloof look before he pulls his mask down.

T’Challa waits as Zuri secures the panther’s mask over his face and then takes his stance. It’s silent now, the tense stillness of a held breath.

Zuri bangs the bottom of his spear against the ground. “Let the challenge begin,” he declares and steps away onto the rocks, his robe drifting behind him.

The drumming starts up, but nothing is louder to T’Challa’s ears than the pound of his own heart.

N’Jadaka moves first. T’Challa blocks deftly, shield vibrating under N’Jadaka’s force. N’Jadaka tries again, rapid, vicious, armed with the doggedness typical of one of Sekhmet’s tribe who wield the same ferocity as their goddess of war.

T’Challa moves to the sound of Shuri urging him on, her lisping voice twining with W’Kabi and Nakia’s. The ground feels strange under his feet, the touch of the air against his skin muted. With the Herb in his blood, T’Challa had lived in a sharper, brighter world, and now with it gone, everything is slightly out of alignment, lesser than what he knows it can be, his synapses travelling slower. A crawl and not a sprint.

He pushes through the oddness and lands a spinning hook kick that cracks N’Jadaka’s mask in half. Bringing up his spear, he draws first blood, slicing along N’Jadaka’s cheek. The gash is almost lost amongst the carmine paint already there.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, N’Jadaka,” he says, because he has to. He has to try. There is no need for blood to be spilled between them by their own hands.

N’Jadaka quickly refocuses past the pain. “Nah,” he replies, “it really does.”

T’Challa loses his mask next, lower lip stinging from the blow that breaks it into useless chunks. In return, he disarms N'Jadaka of a khopesh sword, narrowly avoiding slashing N’Jadaka’s wrist.

“Yield,” T’Challa demands, blood in his mouth, fire in his blood.

N’Jadaka bares his teeth. His retaliation is a slice across T’Challa’s belly, another across the forearm that forces T’Challa’s shield out of his hand. T'Challa twists away from what would have been a clean stab to the gut and N’Jadaka’s blade carves across his ribs. The lash of pain is sharp, spiking viciously. He sucks in a hissing breath.

Sweat trickles down his back, washed away when N’Jadaka collides against him and T’Challa falls back into the water, the slip of it cool and welcome over his heated skin. He doesn’t let himself savor it. N’Jadaka is a worthy opponent, the best T’Challa could ask for, but this is T’Challa’s coronation day and his people are singing his name and he will not lose. He will not.

Rising with a quick roll, he reaches for his short spear in time to drive the shaft of it hard and unforgiving against N’Jadaka’s collarbone. The sick snap of bone breaking isn’t satisfying to T’Challa’s ears. The slump of N’Jadaka’s left shoulder isn’t satisfying to his sight.  

N’Jadaka makes for another attack, tenacious until the end. T’Challa tracks the swipe of N’Jadaka’s sword, predicts where it will fall, sees what he has to do to snare his victory. It’s as easy as joining the dots. He turns it into reality, evading N’Jadaka’s attack and driving the blade of his spear into the meat of N’Jadaka’s slumped shoulder.

N’Jadaka yells through gritted teeth like wounded prey. He stumbles. T’Challa knocks his legs out from underneath, traps him against the ground from behind. He pulls his blade out of N’Jadaka’s shoulder and presses it up against the all too fragile skin at his throat. T’Challa’s free hand he hooks over where N’Jadaka’s shoulder bleeds, jaw tightening at the sharp cry in N’Jadaka’s throat.

Beneath him, N’Jadaka turns to stone. Any more force and T’Challa could easily open up flesh and muscle, paint the clear water a red as deep as the colors of N’Jadaka’s tribe.

T’Challa turns his mouth against N’Jadaka’s tousled hair. “Yield,” he says again.

N’Jadaka hauls in quick, short breaths. Rigid with tension, he says nothing.

“It _doesn’t_ have to be this way,” T’Challa insists.

N’Jadaka growls, makes a hopeless attempt with his working arm to grab at the sword just out of his reach.

“Don’t make me be your killer, N’Jadaka,” T’Challa hisses, fierce, angry now. Angry that N’Jadaka would be willing to do this to him, force his hand like this. “That is the last thing I’ve ever wanted to be for you.”

“I had to do this,” N’Jadaka says. “I had to try.”

“And you have. You’ve done your tribe proud. We can end this now.”

“ _Fuck_. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”

“Don't do this. Yield. For them, if not for yourself.”   

“I—” N’Jadaka says heavily, pausing, pausing long enough that T’Challa thinks he won’t say it, that he will make it so that T’Challa has to kill him. But then it comes, dragged out of N’Jadaka’s throat like blood culled from a stone: “I yield.”

T’Challa exhales and throws his spear away from them. His hand is stained red from N’Jadaka’s wound. His relief is more bitter than sweet.

Jubilant cheers break out all around them in a joyous cacophony he can't bring himself to enjoy. The silence from where Sekhmet's tribe stand is palpable. T’Challa shifts to one side, weathering the sting of his own injuries as he removes his weight from N’Jadaka. He wants to say something, wants to stay beside N’Jadaka, help him. His touch lingers briefly, just a skim of his fingers alongside N’Jadaka’s heaving ribs before one of N’Jadaka’s tribesmen hurries forward and T’Challa moves away.

N’Jadaka’s companion raises him onto his feet carefully, half-carrying him towards the rocks. N’Yami steps into the water to meet them, the primness of her mouth softening, hand cupping tenderly around N’Jadaka’s face.

T’Challa thinks to look away when N’Jadaka glances over his shoulder and catches T’Challa watching. The moment pulls taut like a strained thread between them. T’Challa doesn’t blink, willing to let it last as long as it wants. N’Jadaka doesn’t look away. His usually expressive face is opaque, unknowable.

N’Yami is the one to break their stare, urging her tribesman onwards, and then there is chanting, loud and harsh and unfamiliar, drawing T’Challa’s attention away towards the western caverns. The Jabari reveal themselves for the first time in too long, Lord M’Baku issuing his own challenge.

T’Challa takes up his weapons again. He fights again, wins again, and when he glances towards the tribe of Sekhmet after, he finds N’Yami’s inscrutable face watching him.

T’Challa holds her gaze. He is King now, has earned that mantle and the respect it demands with blood and sweat, his body torn, aching, pulsing with the pain of proving himself worthy.

At last, N’Yami nods.

T’Challa acknowledges it with a nod of his own. He looks to Zuri, who approaches, champion necklace in hand, and slips it over T’Challa’s head. The claws are a cool, dangling touch over his chest. He embraces Zuri, hears the rich approval in Zuri’s voice as he utters with finality, “My King.”

T’Challa sweeps his glance over the Falls and the many platforms bursting with the colors of his people – truly _his_ people now, his to lead, to protect. They are singing, the Dora jumping in the water in a dance led by Okoye, General Mandisa watching with a delicate smile. W’Kabi strikes his hands together in a jaunty rhythm while Nakia grins and whoops.

T’Challa crosses his arms over his chest, right over left, fists tight, and yells, “Wakanda forever!” It reverberates back towards him in loud, proud voices that meld into one complete, melodious sound.

Shuri bounds up to his side with an ecstatic, “Brother!” and T’Challa catches her easily in his sore arms, her figure slight even for a child of seven. He laughs at her immediate protest. “No, let me go! You’re bleeding on me. Mama! Make him to let me go!”

But their mother only smiles wider and takes his face in her hands once he allows Shuri to squirm away.

“I knew you would triumph,” she says, pride shimmering wetly in her eyes.

T’Challa places a gentle kiss against the palm of her hand.  

He leaves the Falls alone and on the same shuttle with which he’d arrived. It takes him to the Hall of Kings, where they tend to his wounds, repairing broken skin back into smoothness with ease, and T’Challa moves, unencumbered, down shadowy corridors he'd know in utter darkness and into the core. The ethereal, glowing home of the Heart-shaped Herb.

When the Herb surges through him once more, burrowing into his bones, T’Challa shudders under the consuming touch, born anew with its ancient, sacred power teeming inside him. The copper sand falls over him and the light of the Herb, a light that has followed him throughout his life, colored it purple at the edges, follows him into the ancestral plane, stretching across its vivid sky, shining down on T’Challa as he falls down onto his knees at his father’s feet like a child.

“Stand up,” his father tells him. “You are a king.”

“You are a good man," his father tells him, "and it is hard for a good man to be king."

“You’re going to struggle,” his father tells him, “so you need to surround yourself with those you can trust.”

T’Challa takes the words back to the world of the living, bursting up through the sand, the racing tattoo of his heart wild against his rib cage. Zuri steadies him, T’Challa laughing breathlessly, giddy and believing finally. “He was there. My father. He was there.”

Zuri smiles, avuncular, and it’s almost enough to ease the loss still fresh inside T’Challa.

When T’Challa has to return to the shuttle once more, the exhilaration that had zinged through him after the Falls begins dwindling, morphing. He pulls the large shawl Zuri had draped around him tighter around his shoulders. Anticipation simmers low in his belly as he thinks of what’s to come now—a tradition reaching back to the time of Bashenga, taking place on the first night of a Wakandan monarch's ascension to the throne.

T’Challa had learned of the tributes early in life. An offering to the monarch, not of gems or fineries, but of flesh and blood. A candidate for the position of Consort. His own mother had been a tribute from the River Tribe, marrying his father shortly after their night together, their certainty of each other already so strong and unwavering even then.

He finds his mother waiting for him now at the corner of the Palace specially designated for the following hours.

“You saw him,” she says. “Your father.”

T’Challa offers her a smile and his arm. They turn together, walking slowly. “I did. You were right. He is still with us.”  

“It is Bast’s blessing.”

“I wish you and Shuri could’ve seen him as well.”

“We carry him with us in our hearts. We are never alone.”

“No, you are not,” T’Challa agrees, knowing it will make her smile, and it does, a beautiful, tender sliver on her lips.

“How are you feeling about tonight?”

“I’m still not sure if I want to go through with this. You know I prefer to choose my partners myself.”

“Choosing a tribute doesn’t mean you’ll absolutely have to marry them one day, T’Challa, but it just doesn’t hurt to have a look at your options.” His mother makes that small, delighted sound in her throat that means she is suppressing laughter. “You might even enjoy it. Nakia will be among them, after all.”

“ _Mama_. Everyone knows Nakia and I are no longer together.”

“Even so. It isn’t like the River Tribe would dare to send anyone but her. She’d have their head.”

T’Challa laughs because it’s true.

“If you truly don’t want this,” his mother continues, “you can always send them away. Your great-grandmother declined her tributes when she was crowned, but she made sure to offer them gifts in return as a sign of respect. She wasn’t the first one to do so, either.” T’Challa nods, aware of the precedent. “The Jabari, as usual, won’t be sending a tribute. The tribe of Sekhmet has also said nothing so far. I presume it’s because they challenged you today.”

“Understandable,” T’Challa says, seeing cold eyes again, hearing the resentment curling N’Jadaka’s contemptuous mouth as he’d yielded. “We’ll need to reach out to them. The Jabari, as well. Find a way to resolve their discontent.”

“Yes, especially with Sekhmet’s tribe. They're powerful; we can’t afford to have them against us. For now, however—” his mother takes his hands in hers as they reach a great wooden door flanked by two male attendants, “—concern yourself with nothing but enjoying the night ahead. It could change the rest of your life forever.”

“Like it did yours and Baba’s, I know, I know. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow, yes?”

“Of course.”

He presses her hands gently and she glides away with a parting smile and inimitable grace.  

T’Challa turns to the attendants patiently waiting. “Shall we?”

“I am Lesidi, my King,” the first young man says in a soft tenor. “This is M’Sizi. We will be helping you prepare this evening.”

Naturally self-sufficient, T’Challa has bathed and dressed himself since he was Shuri’s age and it is only knowing this is part of tradition that persuades him to politely cooperate. “Lead the way, Lesidi, M’Sizi.”

Behind the door sits a bathing room, thick wisps of steam rising from the pool set into the stone floor. The warm air is almost stifling, scent-rich with sandalwood and lavender. As Lesidi and M’Sizi undress him, T’Challa peers into the cloudy green vibrancy of the water, the surface of it still enough that it could almost pass for a solid jewel.

M’Sizi run soft cloths over him once he is settled in the pool, medicinal salt in the water easing any lingering soreness in his muscles. T’Challa closes his eyes and allows his thoughts to dissipate into the same languid fog around him. The hands of his attendants never stray far from him, gentle as if they are worshipers tending to a holy temple.

In the connected chamber, they smooth creamy oils onto him until his skin is satiny and sleek, body turned languorous under their assured touch. He straightens when M’Sizi and Lesidi reveal his clothes and accessories for the night, quietly anxious as he looks them over.

“Are they to your liking?” Lesidi asks, hesitant, when T’Challa says nothing.

“I usually prefer a...simpler and more discreet look,” T’Challa replies. “But tonight isn’t really meant for the simple and discreet, is it.”

“No, my King,” M’Sizi says, smiling with a hint of shyness. “It certainly isn’t.”

“I’ll live, I suppose.”

The trousers come first. Calf-length and extensively decorated, intricate silver beadwork sitting in miniature diamonds against black fabric and—T’Challa notes with a raised eyebrow—netting running down the sides that exposes the sides of his thighs. His shirt is of sheer and lace and leaves nothing to the imagination. The deep, dark purple hugs his torso tightly, clinging to his biceps, the firm ropes of his muscles outlined distinctly. Its wide, open neckline drops down to his lower stomach to reveal a wide swath of his chest while the back cascades onto the floor behind him, a soft whisper against the ground as he walks.

M’Sizi descends to a knee at T’Challa’s feet to fix in place thin anklets. Lesidi slides silver rings onto each of T’Challa’s fingers, sparing only the one already bearing his grandfather’s ring. A chain spills out of the centre rings of both hands, connecting to a web of smaller links that spread over his wrists to hang loosely around his forearms. A little tilt of his hands allows T’Challa to catch the faint flaring of a purple sheen across each ring.

His feet remain bare, and he makes little noise across the plush carpet towards the door that will take him to his tributes.

“They are waiting for you, my King,” M’Sizi says with a slight bow, Lesidi following suit.

T’Challa cordially thanks them for their assistance. He takes a breath and then goes through into an opulent sitting area steeped in the warm amber light of a Wakandan evening. There are two doors—one, he surmises, must lead to the bedroom, the other directly to the hallway. A modest spread and ample wine sits on a round table to the side. T'Challa makes only brief note of it, drawn towards the center of the room where his tributes sit on divans arranged in a circle, a smaller ottoman at one head clearly designated for him.

T’Challa is familiar with them all. They are his peers, renowned members of their tribes in one way or another. He smiles at them one by one. Nakia resplendent in shining emerald, yellow shadow glittering at her eyes. Kuende and her lilting voice, the song-bird of the Merchant tribe. Nehoya draped in earthy tones and inviting smiles. Solemn, dignified B’Tumba, a man of few words who nevertheless softens for T’Challa.

When he sits, they rise, offering a Wakandan salute, each formally introducing themselves as tribute as per tradition.

“On behalf of everyone here,” Nakia says at the end, “I’d like to congratulate you on your victories today.”

“Thank you, Nakia. Everyone. I've been preparing for this day all my life. It’s good to finally be here, but the hardships clearly haven’t ended for me just yet.” T’Challa gestures to their made-up faces and beautiful figures, firmly ignoring that there ought to be a fifth tribute. “How is a man to choose? I might have to ask for Bast’s guidance.”

“No need, when there’s an easy solution,” Nakia says with a mischievous look about her. “You could be the first to choose all the tributes.”

“That would at least record my name in history if I don't ever achieve anything else,” T’Challa replies. It earns him a soft laugh, Nakia’s mouth gentling into a smile. “Maybe I’ll take it into consideration.”  

“It would certainly mean I wouldn’t have gone through the pain of wearing this corset for nothing,” Kuende says glibly.

“Such a tragic life you lead, Kuende. What else are you suffering through for our King’s sake?” Nehoya asks, teasing her as he has always done, the heavy hoops in his ears jangling with the turn of his head.

Kuende makes a show of feigning offense, blue-tinted lips gasping, and T’Challa shares a look with B’Tumba. Easy as that, they all fall into the same comfortable conversations of their youth, laughter marking the shift of evening into twilight, the light sensors coming awake to dispel encroaching darkness.  

T’Challa relaxes under the cadence of Nakia’s voice, watching her contently as she recounts her story. He admires her natural elegance and moves closer to what was perhaps always going to be his inevitable decision.

The chime, when it comes, has them all turning their heads towards the door.  

Lesidi enters after T’Challa calls out permission, hovering at the doorway to inform them, “I apologize for the interruption, my King, but the tribute from Sekhmet’s tribe has now arrived.”

“Oh?” T’Challa goes alert beneath his placid demeanor. He feels something bite into the base of his spine. A crackle, as if his body has seen into the future and is warning him. “Send them in."

Like the flick of a switch, the air in the room changes the moment N’Jadaka steps in.

T’Challa feels the tense density across his shoulders. He can't look away. The crackle at his spine grows, sizzling there like embedded lightning the longer his eyes rove over N’Jadaka.

Short locs loose now, N’Jadaka’s hair is parted to the side and interspersed with beads of red and gold, bright little flickers in the dark night of his mane. The tribe of Sekhmet traditionally wear their locs long and flowing down the length of their backs, but N’Jadaka isn’t only of Wakanda and he displays it proudly in the way he looks, the way he speaks and moves, the ideas that spark in his mind.

A necklace of solid gold and ruby sits at the base of his neck, a set of chains streaming down his bare chest to fall just where the painted pattern at his navel begins. The rosetta is half-changed now, one side colored black and purple, the other still the striking red it had been at the Falls. The same gold and ruby chains sit as thick bands on either of his shoulders, thinning into more slender loops that dangle close to his sides, trembling with his every step. Some kind of illusion hangs over the jewelry, a trick of the light or clever craftsmanship that gives the impression the metal is twisting and alive, streams of perpetual fire arcing over N’Jadaka’s skin. 

Vaguely, T’Challa recalls N’Yami is known for her expertise in metalwork.

“ _Kumkani_.” N’Jadaka’s tone is begrudgingly respectful. He takes the empty space beside Nehoya and bends his head. “Please accept my apologies for arriving so late.” His customary piercings are in place again, glinting at T’Challa from the bridge of N’Jadaka’s nose, the helix and lobe of his right ear. Another sits lower at his right nipple, lower still in his navel.

“Don’t concern yourself over it,” T’Challa says graciously.

N’Jadaka raises his head. He brings his arms up into the Wakandan salute with an ease that suggests T’Challa had never impaled him at the shoulder only hours ago. “I, N’Jadaka of Sekhmet’s tribe, offer myself to you as tribute, my King.”

It's a good imitation of deference, T'Challa can admit that much, but there's the slightest curve to N'Jadaka's mouth that makes him appear almost cat-like—a stifled smile, _satisfaction_ at knowing he is the center of attention. It is so characteristically N’Jadaka that T’Challa is caught between scoffing and laughing.

The silence thickens as they all wait for him to speak. T’Challa suspects everyone knows there is really only one choice now. 

“Thank you,” he says, “to all of you for coming here tonight and giving me the pleasure of your company. If nothing else, I’ve enjoyed the chance to speak to you again, but I have kept you waiting for my decision long enough.”

T’Challa catches Nakia’s eye in particular, smiling ruefully. She shakes her head, forgiving easily, and he is grateful all over again that they have somehow achieved this steadfast equilibrium between them.

It’s easier, then, for T’Challa to say, “N’Jadaka, I accept you as tribute.”

“You honor me,” N’Jadaka replies smoothly.

T’Challa can almost believe him. N’Jadaka’s Xhosa had once been shaky and unconfident, noticeably accented. T’Challa had liked the unique sound of it, fond of the initial hesitant gaps in N’Jadaka’s words, but N’Jadaka’s quick, clever tongue was too quick and clever for his stumbling to last long. T’Challa had liked that, too—N'Jadaka's brilliant intellect, how there was nothing he could not overcome.

Nakia, Nehoya, Kuende, and B’Tumba perform a last salute and take their leave. N’Jadaka doesn’t watch them go, his eyes only for T’Challa. T’Challa knows better than to feel flattered by the singular interest.

Several long beats pass between them in silence, before T’Challa gestures towards the table laden with delicacies. “Come. We shouldn’t waste what they’ve prepared for us.”

He allows N’Jadaka to walk before him and considers that perhaps it wasn't a wise decision, when the slide of N’Jadaka’s muscles is so assured, the bold saunter of his body mimicking the prowl of a hunting cat. It’s only accentuated by the delicate chains of interconnected triangles streaming down the expanse of N’Jadaka’s scar-flecked back, leading invitingly down to the trousers that cling to the plump swell of his ass and thickness of his thighs. They’re simple in comparison to his body jewelry, pleated, tapering to an end just below the knees.

T’Challa takes a seat on the satin ottoman opposite N'Jadaka, careful to brush the train of his shirt behind him so that it drapes over the ground and not remain trapped beneath him. He faces N’Jadaka squarely. It feels acutely as if they’re continuing on with the challenge at the Falls, merely in a different venue and with different weapons.

“You look real nice,” N’Jadaka drawls, gaze shameless and sticky over T’Challa's body. “Purple’s always been your color.”

“I hadn’t realized you’d noticed what color suits me,” T’Challa says. “We don’t talk much these days, after all.”

“I get busy. I’m sure you of all people understand how that goes.” N’Jadaka’s smile is hollow. “It’s been an interesting day today.”

“Yes, and it’s getting more and more interesting.”

“Heard the Jabari turned up for once to challenge you, too.”

“In hindsight, it was inevitable. They had to show themselves at some point and they're much more traditional than we are, so of course they would be threatened by Wakanda being more involved abroad.” T’Challa reaches for the decanter and begins pouring pale wine into two stemless glasses. “I’m glad to see your wounds have been taken care of, but that’s no surprise for one of Sekhmet’s. Distinguished fighters, distinguished healers.”

“We believe in balance. Warriors should know how to heal the same wounds they make. You were good today, though. I was impressed. If I’d won, I would’ve still let you carry on as Black Panther.”

“You’re assuming I would’ve yielded.”

N’Jadaka cocks his head. The beads in his hair clack gently. “Didn’t think you’d make your mother and sister lose someone else so quickly.”

“You shouldn’t have put me in the position of defending my birthright in the first place,” T’Challa says, pushing a half-full glass towards N’Jadaka. It pleases him, regardless, to know that N’Jadaka hadn’t wanted to kill him just as he hadn’t wanted to kill N’Jadaka. “I would’ve understood if your tribe had decided to not send a tribute.”

“I volunteered,” N’Jadaka says with a shrug of one broad, elegant shoulder. He takes a sip of the wine and makes a face. “I keep forgetting your wine’s a lot weaker than ours.”

“Our wine is made with the intention of still being able to think straight for at least ten seconds after drinking it.”

“No wonder you guys are no fun. You know,” N’Jadaka says, “I didn’t think you’d actually choose me. Not with Nakia around. You sure about this, man? Can’t see her being too happy with you.”

“Nakia and I haven’t promised anything to each other.” T’Challa sips at his own glass, holding the smooth, buttery wine in his mouth for a moment, allowing its pleasant warmth to creep through him. “Let’s stop with this pretense. You were hoping I’d be curious enough to wonder why you’re here, so I’ve decided to indulge you. Tell me.”

“Got curious. I wanted to know what goes down in these things.”

“N’Jadaka,” T’Challa says, an order.

N’Jadaka hears it loud and clear. He drops his glass onto the table and regards T'Challa silently. He’s holding his body loosely, but it’s studiedly casual, an act. N’Jadaka has never been one to prefer stillness. “I just wanted to talk,” he says.

“Talk. About?”

“Your intentions for Wakanda and the outside world. Were you really surprised I challenged you?”

“No, I expected it. You’ve never made your disapproval of Wakanda a secret.”

N’Jadaka’s eyes are flinty, polished stones.

“I played nice,” he says scathingly. “I’ve been playing nice for _fourteen years_ ‘cause I realized your father wasn’t gonna do nothing even though out there, our people suffer, and we—” he waves a hand over the food and drink between them, “—we live in luxury. I’m complicit in this bullshit now, too. I ain’t about to deny that. At least I get to come back to Wakanda. Folks back in Oakland don’t get that option.”

“You’re a War Dog,” T’Challa says. “You know what kind of interventions we implement. You know I’ve done them myself as Panther.”

“And you know it ain’t nearly enough. We got vibranium all around us. Magnetic levitation, airships outta some sci-fi comic book. We slashed each other up a few hours ago, but now we sitting here all fine like nothing happened. There’s nothing we _can’t_ do in this country and you telling me a few quiet interventions are the way? We need something big. I’m not the only one thinking Wakanda should be taking more initiative and it ain’t Nakia I’m talking ‘bout here.”

W’Kabi, T’Challa thinks. If there is anyone in their shared circle that N’Jadaka still regularly speaks to, it is W’Kabi, and T’Challa is more than aware of W’Kabi’s particular ideas for the rest of the world. It would not be out of the ordinary for other members of the Border Tribe to share the same views. T’Challa will have to remain vigilant on that note, but before that—

“Is that a threat, N’Jadaka,” he says, cool, unyielding vibranium in his voice. “Should I be expecting something.”

“Just laying down some facts,” N’Jadaka says nonchalantly.

“As King, my father’s first responsibility was to Wakanda. As King, so is mine.”

“It’s made ya’ll so blind, you abandoned Black people who ain’t Wakandan. Only reason I didn’t end up in foster care after the accident was ‘cause my dad taught me how to use his kimoyo beads and my aunt answered when I called.”

It’s an uncomfortable reminder, sinking thorns deep into T’Challa’s skin. What could’ve happened to N’Jadaka if he’d never been found, all the ways T’Challa could’ve lost him without even knowing that there was someone to lose.

“I’m eternally grateful to them,” he says and the truth of it must reach N’Jadaka, who looks away very briefly.

“But it don’t matter,” N’Jadaka says, “who my dad is or that I choose to honor him by serving in his tribe; too many of you still think I’m an outsider. The child of a War Dog who wasn’t supposed to even have a kid and an American woman.”

“I’ve never considered you an outsider,” T’Challa says. “I apologize that I’ve made you feel like one.”

N’Jadaka makes no reply, his jaw locking up tight. T’Challa moves on. “You have something specific in mind for Wakanda. What is it?”

Now N’Jadaka is quick to answer. He leans forward, almost snarling as he says, “We’ve got War Dogs embedded in every nation. Send them our weapons and they’ll arm oppressed people all over the world, so they can rise up finally and take out their oppressors and anyone who stands with them.”

T’Challa hastily sets down his wine-glass, incredulous. “Our _weapons_? So that they can wage war? That would destroy the world, not help it.”

“Not your style, is it? You’d do some dumb shit like going to the U.N.—”

“I won’t apologize for not wanting to throw the world into chaos. Even if you had won and were king now, I wouldn’t have let you carry out that plan. I would’ve fought you every step of the way.”

“You would’ve committed treason against your king?”

“I would’ve seen innocent people safe. If our weapons were to fall in the wrong hands even once—”

N’Jadaka scoffs, laughing disbelievingly. “Where was all this caring before?”

“Of course I cared,” T’Challa says, swift, vehement, the same strain of fire N’Jadaka carries, and N’Jadaka raises his eyebrows in evident surprise. “I still do. Aren’t there already those working towards justice? We’ll ask what resources they need from us, so they can continue to mobilize themselves and carve out their own path to empowerment.”

“They’ve suffered long enough and you wanna drag it out, so you can _talk_?”

“Something so important shouldn’t be rushed. I’ve been thinking more and more about the outside world these days. I’ve had to with my father’s decision to strengthen our presence on the international stage before he - passed.” T'Challa pauses, and it's only because he does that he sees some sentiment flicker over N’Jadaka’s face, too fast for T’Challa to recognize and decipher.

“And have you come to any decisions?” N’Jadaka asks. 

T’Challa hasn’t. There is so much to consider and no simple path. There will be fury in the same vein as N’Jadaka’s from those Wakanda has neglected. A tempest waits ahead for T’Challa, and he will have to guide his people through it. Sighing, he shakes his head. “I don’t think this is the kind of conversation the previous monarchs had with their chosen tributes.”

“I like breaking the mold,” N’Jadaka says with bland humor. “It should’ve been. We shouldn’t have to have it right now.”

It’s nothing T’Challa can refute.

They used to sit like this when they were younger, debating and challenging each other over their schoolwork, over steaming bowls of soup and pastries. N’Jadaka’s face softer under the touch of childhood, his body lanky and still unmarked by his many achievements. A time when he still used to smile sincerely, when T’Challa had still made him smile.

Something subtle and sweet had grown between them during those days. It had lived in the little glances T’Challa couldn’t help throwing towards N’Jadaka and the quick touches N’Jadaka would skim over him. Fleeting things that T’Challa would feel brand-hot, blazing on his skin hours later. They had seemed inevitable. 

But then N’Jadaka had been given leave to return to the United States. When he’d returned a year later, he’d been different. Seventeen and jaded already, mulish, afflicted with a rage. Wakanda seemed to disgust him. _Privileged_ and _ignorant_ and _selfish_ fell from his sour mouth. He’d argued with T’Challa over little things, avoided him. Eventually T’Challa had let him, turning his attention to the innumerable lessons of a Crown Prince and a Black Panther in training and, for a while, to Nakia.

N’Jadaka didn’t seem to notice, immersing himself in the ways of the War Dogs and of his own tribe, fighting and scarring himself until he’d become their Heart, visiting the States whenever he could. Every time T’Challa had crossed paths with him, they’d silently waded through an ocean of what-might-have-beens.

With those distant, halcyon years in mind, T’Challa dares to say, “Did you really come here just to talk? You could’ve requested an audience with me tomorrow. I wouldn’t have turned you away. But you still chose to come tonight.”

“Told you before. I got curious.”

“Really, now?”

“Maybe I just wanted to see if the new king’s as good in bed as he is in a fight.”

“Always so bold. You’ve never changed in that regard.”

N’Jadaka laughs and it sounds nearly genuine. “That’s the polite way of putting it. You haven’t changed much, either. Still so high-minded.”

N’Jadaka says it sardonically enough that T’Challa has to ask, “Is that meant to be a compliment or an insult? I can’t tell.”

“Both. If that’s not too _bold_ of me to say, _kumkani_.”

“It is,” T’Challa says, dry, “but I’m in the mood to forgive you.”

“So kind of you,” N’Jadaka says.

T’Challa can't help his chuckle. He gestures to the plates between them. “Eat, N’Jadaka.”

N’Jadaka finally deigns to take a slice of the bright-fleshed fruit from the plate closest to him, the translucent skin of it tearing easily under his teeth, spilling juice along the lushness of his lower lip. It feels like an act of truce.

T’Challa goes ahead and uncovers all the concealed dishes, setting free an array of tempting scents. He chooses the warm bread first, dipping it into spicy sauces that leave his mouth tingling, tries the peppered, juicy chunks of meat next. 

They eat steadily, saying nothing, only their jewelry speaking in clinks and chimes. Despite all the words they’ve exchanged, this minefield they’re continuously navigating between them, the silence is strangely not oppressive. T’Challa quietly enjoys the flavors melding in his mouth, sharpened by careful measures of wine.

N’Jadaka nudges coconut-sprinkled _mandazi_ towards him without remark. T’Challa makes no remark himself about how N’Jadaka clearly remembers T’Challa’s fondness for the fried snack. Liberally coating a piece in caramel sauce, he savors the spread of sweetness across his tongue.

“I used to wonder if you’d ever stop hating me,” T’Challa says, a gentle offering into the quiet between them. He dips his fingers into a bowl of water, wipes them clean.

N’Jadaka turns still. T'Challa almost regrets speaking. Then N'Jadaka shifts his plate away from himself and washes his own fingers. “I’ve never hated you,” he admits. “I get pissed off, sure, but I don’t hate you. You can do better than any of the monarchs who came before you. You can _be_ better." After some deliberation, he adds, “And you didn’t, by the way, make me feel like an outsider. Surprisingly. Not you. It’s why I— I thought about it sometimes. Us.” His wine-slick lips gleam lightly. N’Jadaka licks them slowly. “I made it look like I didn’t care, but.” He shrugs.

“There’s always been something between us. A spark. Ironically—” T’Challa smiles wryly, “—I think our arguments might’ve made it grow.”

“We _would_ work like that, wouldn’t we,” N’Jadaka replies with the same wryness. “You’ve thought about me, too. I know you have. I remember the way you used to look at me.”

“You’re beautiful,” T’Challa says simply. “I’ve always found you so.”

N’Jadaka’s is an allure that would find susceptibility in even the most indifferent of people and T’Challa has never been reluctant to admire it, even if it had gone nowhere in the end.

“You say things like that so easily,” N’Jadaka says. “You mean them so easily.” He’s looking at T’Challa, frowning, as if T’Challa is a continual enigma to him, a book written in a language that had seemed simple at first, but still continues to evade his grasp years later.

“It’s easy when it’s true,” T’Challa says. He slides his hand closer to N’Jadaka’s on the table, the tips of their fingers nudging. N’Jadaka doesn’t move his hand away, so T'Challa says yet another truth. “I would never have looked away from you, if I thought it was what you wanted.”

“I tried to ignore it. I didn’t want you to look at me like that. You wouldn’t understand the things I’d seen, been through, and it just complicated things. I wasn’t gonna start nothing with you when I knew I was gonna be trying for the throne.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Here I am. Losing to you twice in one day.”

“Don’t say that. You’re not losing by being here with me.”

N’Jadaka’s mouth turns tight with whatever protest he chooses not to voice out loud.

“So,” he says instead, “what happens now?”

“It doesn’t need to go beyond this. You’ve said your piece and you’re right. It is time for Wakanda to take initiative. I hear you, N’Jadaka. If you want to end this here and leave, you can.”

"Just like that? Not that I'm complaining, but I thought it would take me longer to get you to agree to do something." 

"I know you'll find this hard to believe, but sometimes you are actually wrong about things. I'll call Lesidi for you. He'll—"

"What if I don't want to?" N'Jadaka interrupts. His hand is still there on the table, fingertips still connected to T'Challa's. "Leave, I mean. What happens between us, then?"

A twist in T’Challa’s chest at the sound of those words. He hadn’t known hope could feel like a kind of pain, but at least it is a sweet pain.

"What happens?" T'Challa repeats. He takes hold of N’Jadaka’s hand. Raises it to his mouth, tender across the knuckles. "That's what happens."

Gently, N'Jadaka's fingers curl into T'Challa's. 

T'Challa interprets it as a sign. Standing, he walks around the table, N’Jadaka rising to meet him, allowing him to come in close, closer than he has been in years. T’Challa strokes down the gold chains dangling over N’Jadaka’s chest, the textured skin beneath skimming across his fingertips. N’Jadaka does nothing to stop him, merely watches T’Challa in return with dark, intent eyes.  
  
This close and the intangible lure of N’Jadaka’s perfumed skin is inescapable. T’Challa bends his head to the soft convergence of N’Jadaka’s shoulder and neck, and breathes in slow, deep. The sweet smoke suffuses his lungs, carries out some kind of stealthy hypnosis. He almost doesn’t hear N’Jadaka ask, “You OK?”  
  
“I’ve been the Black Panther for three years,” T’Challa replies, quiet. “The challenge today was the first time I’ve had the Herb taken out of me since. I’m getting used to its effects again. It makes everything...” He closes his eyes briefly. Inhales again. Slow. Deep. “More. So much more. You’re in every breath I take, N’Jadaka.”

N’Jadaka slides a warm hand up over T’Challa’s torso where it’s exposed at the front, his calluses rough and catching and more perfect to T’Challa than the silkiest skin.

“How,” N’Jadaka says, “do I know you ain’t doing this ‘cause you think it’s a good way to keep my tribe under control?”

“How do I know you’re not only here to see if you can influence the throne even if you can’t sit upon it yourself?”  

“I’ve never needed to use sex to get what I want.”

“Neither have I,” says T'Challa.

N’Jadaka curls his hand around T’Challa’s nape and presses himself flush against T’Challa. His jewelry digs in softly, warm and growing warmer from the mingled heat of their bodies.

T’Challa wraps an arm around N’Jadaka, feels raised scars and intricate metal beneath his palm. “Do you want to end this here? Do you want to leave?”

“I—” N’Jadaka pauses like he had at the Falls, when T’Challa had not known if N’Jadaka would choose to yield or die, and T’Challa feels the same knife-like jab in his gut again. “I never had any intention of leaving.”

His lips are parted. T’Challa’s eyes fall there, over that tantalizing little space he could take and have for himself, that N’Jadaka wants him to have.

T'Challa lowers his head, giving into temptation. N’Jadaka meets him halfway. It’s a slow, chaste press of their mouths, damp and delicious from the wine. 

“T’Challa,” slips out of N’Jadaka’s mouth in a hot breath like he can’t help it.

“I can’t remember the last time I heard you say my name,” T’Challa says.

That challenging expression so frequently occupying N’Jadaka’s face returns to him, but its edges are softer, teasing. Finally, T’Challa sees him again: the N’Jadaka he’d known, mischievous, lively, trouble in his eyes and along the devious curve of his mouth, the good kind T’Challa wants to become entangled in.

“Think you can get me to say it again?” N’Jadaka dares in a silky murmur.

T’Challa replies by leaning in once again.

They keep it slow, easy, and it _is_ already easy, as if they’re familiar lovers going through old motions. N’Jadaka’s mouth is skilled, sure, moving with its usual confidence. Gradually, he opens for T’Challa’s gently plundering tongue and T’Challa tastes the sweetness hidden in this mouth that likes to smirk at him, defy him. It’s quickly addictive, filling his head honey-thick the same way N’Jadaka’s dizzying scent does.

T'Challa's arm around N’Jadaka’s back turns unyielding. N’Jadaka responds by fisting a hand into T’Challa’s shirt, bringing his teeth in to nip at T’Challa’s lip. The kiss turns harder, wilder, fiercer. The banked desire in T’Challa breaks out, a deep twist of lust that takes solid shape in between his legs—in between N’Jadaka’s, too, his cock thickening against T’Challa’s thigh, radiating heat.

“Show me how a king fucks,” N’Jadaka demands throatily into the slick, hungry battle between their mouths.    

“I intend to,” T’Challa promises, a thunder-like rumble in his chest. In haste and need, he hooks his hands beneath N’Jadaka’s thighs without thinking, lifting him off his feet easily with Panther strength.

N’Jadaka lets out a sharp bark of laughter, shocked into authenticity. “You think I’m some kinda toy you can haul around?” he asks archly, unleashing biting kisses across T’Challa’s mouth that must be punishment for his supposed infraction.

T’Challa thinks only of the tight grasp of N’Jadaka’s thighs around his hips, the sweet precursor it is to the way he’ll have N’Jadaka’s thighs tight around him again soon, locked there as T’Challa buries his cock inside him.

He takes them into the next room, the sensors triggering soft, tawny light to drape over just the bed, leaving everything else shrouded in hazy darkness. The large canopy bed is luxurious with its indulgent violet silks and gauzy curtains, but T’Challa barely notices anything beyond N’Jadaka, who pushes him and nimbly twists away once T’Challa sets him down.

N’Jadaka kneels on the bed, waiting, poised. There’s sharpness in his eyes as if he intends for there to be another fight between them, one for the honor of fucking him.

T’Challa places a knee onto the bed, willing to give N’Jadaka that fight. His body hums with the power of Bast’s blessing, but more so with an honest desire for N’Jadaka that’s been years in the making, sitting dormant and starved in T’Challa for too long.

It gratifies that covetous desire that N’Jadaka decides to slink down into a sensual sprawl over the sheets, his glinting jewelry rippling with him. T’Challa has to take a moment to simply admire the bronze skin and strong muscles and gilded lines that form N’Jadaka, the stunningly erotic picture he makes with such little effort.

“I thought you said you were gonna show me how a king fucks,” N’Jadaka says with all the entitlement of a god demanding reverence. “All I see is you staring at me.”

“And I see I’ll have to teach you patience,” T’Challa replies, moving closer, curling a hand just above N’Jadaka’s right ankle, bone delicate in his tight grasp. “It’s a good thing the night is long.”

N’Jadaka makes an amused little sound in his throat. “Patience? To one of Sekhmet’s wild children?”

“Let me take my time with you for now,” T’Challa says.

He unfastens the straps of N’Jadaka’s sandal and eases it off, repeating the motion with the left foot. Once it sits bare in his beringed hand, T’Challa lifts N’Jadaka’s foot to his mouth, brushing a kiss against the instep. His eyes never leave N’Jadaka’s. He catches the swallow of N’Jadaka’s throat. The way his chest rises and falls quicker.

N’Jadaka’s scars occupy just his torso, so the wet path T’Challa traces from ankle to calf is smooth under his tongue, interrupted at the knee by fabric he mouths a hot trail over to reach N’Jadaka’s inner thigh. There, he bites into the sumptuous thickness.

N’Jadaka swears violently, muscle flexing beneath T’Challa’s mouth, and digs his fingers into T’Challa’s shoulders. So close to N’Jadaka’s cock, the scent is deeper here, lush with his arousal. T’Challa follows it to hover above where N’Jadaka’s length disturbs the smooth fall of his trousers. He breathes hotly over the jut of it, the dampness seeping through.

N’Jadaka tenses, and then snarls when T’Challa decides to shift his focus onto his belly instead. “I fucking knew you’d do that, you tease.”

T’Challa noses at the painted rosetta on N’Jadaka’s stomach, over the purple and black lines of it, and allows himself a self-satisfied smirk when N’Jadaka says, “You know why it’s those colors, right?”

“Good,” T’Challa says, lips skimming proprietarily over his colors on N’Jadaka’s body. He curls his fingers into the band of N’Jadaka’s trousers and N’Jadaka raises his hips cooperatively, but even that is sultry, like N’Jadaka doesn’t know how to be anything but a constant temptation pressing against T’Challa’s taut restraint.

T’Challa pulls the fabric down and onto the floor, exposing sleek hip-bones, silky thighs. A cock heavy and dark, cut unlike T’Challa’s own, syrupy at the slit.

There’s a flip in T’Challa’s belly. His mouth waters. He wants to bury his face in between N’Jadaka’s thighs. Taste him, breathe him in. “You don’t need me to tell you how gorgeous you are,” T’Challa says, his hunger grinding his voice down into a fine husk.

“But it won’t hurt if you do,” N’Jadaka replies with a wily smile and a coy spread of his legs that hides nothing. 

T’Challa’s growl is immediate, a harsh drag up along his throat. He falls into the space N’Jadaka’s opened up for him, pulling the chains to a side to lick a stripe from N’Jadaka’s belly to chest, tasting scarred skin and hard muscle, the creamy softness in the valleys between each raised mark. T'Challa takes a dark, red-studded nipple into his mouth and N’Jadaka makes a small, hushed sound in his throat, arching up into T’Challa’s mouth, offering himself. T’Challa teases the nub, teeth gentle around the warm metal. N’Jadaka’s answering shiver is such an incongruously delicate thing to run through his powerful body that T’Challa has to see it again, nip at him again, rougher, tugging.

“Your _mouth_ , fuck,” N’Jadaka says, low and tight, his cock leaking some more against his belly.

T’Challa sucks hard, tasting the tang of N'Jadaka's piercing, the sweet-salt of his skin, until N’Jadaka’s adorned nipple is a slick, sore point, and N’Jadaka is groaning for reprieve, trying to pull him away and upwards. T’Challa grants it partially, moving to take N’Jadaka’s mouth, instead, for a kiss messy with too much tongue, but still perfect.

N’Jadaka runs his palms down the length of T’Challa’s back, pulls impatiently at his shirt with a grip that would have ripped the fabric if not for the vibranium weave. “Why am I the only one naked. Take this off already.”

“You should always be naked,” T’Challa replies. Finding the hidden clasp of his shirt, he opens it under N’Jadaka’s avaricious gaze, the lace falling from his body with one last whispering stroke against his skin. The voracity in N’Jadaka’s face—his plush mouth parting to swipe a tongue over his lower lip, his eyes refusing to stray from T’Challa—grows fuller with T’Challa discarding his trousers, unselfconsciously baring himself to show N’Jadaka just what will be filling him to the brim tonight, taking up all the space inside of him so that he’ll never know what it is to be empty again.

“Oh, yeah,” N’Jadaka murmurs approvingly in a low, hot breath, hooking a long leg around T’Challa’s hip. “That dick’s gonna fuck me real good.”

He pulls, and T’Challa drops down to meet him in a wild tangle of their mouths, a harsh slide and catch of their cocks that sets T’Challa’s nerves alight, makes the ache in his balls twist hard. N’Jadaka’s body jewelry and the scars of his chest drag sweetly harsh across T’Challa’s skin as he thrusts down like he is already fucking into N’Jadaka and they grunt through the sharp jolts and electric thrills together.

When N’Jadaka’s hand darts up to the back of his own neck, T’Challa quickly grasps his intention. He grabs N’Jadaka’s wrist, forcing it to a stop. “Leave them. The chains look good on you.”

The edge of N’Jadaka’s mouth is upturned, sly and pleased. His hand falls to T’Challa’s back, reaching for his ass, grinding up restlessly into their rutting. “I can get more, if you like them so much.”

“If you did, I’d be more than happy to show you my appreciation.”

“How ‘bout you show your appreciation now? C’mon, keep your word and fuck me.”

T’Challa says nothing about patience this time, the same overwhelming, eager impulse to already be inside N’Jadaka blooming viciously all along him. Under its influence, he slips down N’Jadaka’s body, licks along N’Jadaka’s perfect cock, following its slight curve to taste the salt at his damp slit and take just the tip into his mouth. His fingers stroke gently at the lightly furred balls beneath.

“ _Yeah_ ,” N’Jadaka groans out.

T’Challa resists the temptation to linger, pulling off, parting N’Jadaka’s thighs further, spreading his ass open to glimpse the promise of pleasure hidden there. It gleams, wet, already prepared, and T’Challa’s cock flexes against his belly with the urge to simply shove in.

“Did you think of me," T'Challa asks, "while you had your fingers inside yourself?”

“Maybe I thought of everything but you.”

“Are you sure about that, N’Jadaka?”

N’Jadaka’s hole splits soft and easy for his finger, just the one at first, but then two very quickly, and it pleases N’Jadaka, T’Challa can tell, the sudden push, the sudden pressure. N’Jadaka’s eyes almost close, dark lashes heavy around darker eyes, mouth working around a silent moan, hips rising to take T’Challa’s fingers in.

“‘Course I fucking thought of you,” N’Jadaka admits in a stumbling rush. “Wanted to come stuffed on your dick. You gon’ give me that, T? Gon’ make me feel it?”

“I’ll keep you spread open on my cock all night if you need it so much,” T’Challa rasps and enjoys N’Jadaka’s thrilled shudder.

He sinks his fingers hard and deep into N’Jadaka, captivated by the smooth acceptance. His tongue longs to lean down and taste the inner heat of N’Jadaka’s body, but T’Challa saves the longing for later, for after he knows what it's like to be held inside N'Jadaka. Pulling his fingers away, hushing N’Jadaka’s protest, T’Challa looks towards the inconspicuous jar of oil on the bedside table.

“Let me,” N’Jadaka says, dipping his fingers in once T’Challa has brought the jar closer, stroking the slick around T’Challa’s cock in a hot, firm grasp. T’Challa can’t help fucking into the sleek grip, a tremble in his thighs and a groan in his throat at N’Jadaka breathily promising, “I’ll suck you off later. I ain’t leaving here without getting this dick in my mouth at least once.”

“We’re going to do many things before this night is finished,” T’Challa vows. He endures one more clever caress of N’Jadaka’s hand before gritting out, “Enough,” and pulling away from the perfect torture of it. 

N’Jadaka’s lust-black eyes flick up to him, bottomless wells of want. T’Challa knows his eyes must be the same. He submits to the slippery hand N’Jadaka reaches up with, feels his own pre-come smearing along his shoulder as N’Jadaka pulls him forward and fixes their mouths together, aligns their bodies together.

T'Challa wonders if the other monarchs had also felt what he feels, this sense that they were about to create something of incredible significance. A union that could change the fabric of the world. 

N’Jadaka’s cheek fits neatly in his hand, his beard a soft scratch against his palm. He is perfection to T'Challa's eyes and T'Challa—he has to know, he has to ask, gently, carefully, “Do you swear loyalty to me, N’Jadaka?”

N’Jadaka pulls back sharply. Scowls. He looks at T’Challa hard and cold, like they’re not lying hot and slick against each other right now. “What's that supposed to mean? Didn’t I yield today?”

“Did you mean it?”

N’Jadaka’s allegiance is a necessity now, crucial to not just the king T’Challa is, but also the man.  

N’Jadaka’s jaw works. “I _yielded_ to you,” he hisses furiously. Desperately. He sounds wounded, voice raw.

Instinct leaps up in T’Challa to soothe N’Jadaka’s distress; he presses their foreheads together, kisses his angry, anguished mouth. Old pain still lies freshly bleeding beneath N’Jadaka’s skin, and T’Challa wants to drive it towards extinction.

“You got no idea,” N’Jadaka says, “what it cost me to do that today. No fucking idea. Prove to me I didn’t make a mistake.”

T’Challa kisses him, sweet, pacifying. “I will. You’ll see. You’ll see.” Kisses him again, keeps kissing and coaxing him into softening with his lips. N'Jadaka doesn't respond and for a wretched moment, T'Challa thinks N’Jadaka will push him away, fight him, but then N’Jadaka opens up, letting their mouths join.

“Don’t make me wait anymore,” N’Jadaka whispers.

“We’ve waited long enough, I think,” T’Challa replies as N'Jadaka's legs slink around him. 

His cock nudges against N’Jadaka’s hole, makes N’Jadaka’s breath stall and T’Challa’s belly tense, and then, slowly, T’Challa fucks into the greedy, welcoming grasp of him, grunting out an overwhelmed, “ _Bast_.” The exquisite give of N’Jadaka’s body, the lingering tightness beyond it, cleans his mind of all thoughts for a long, devastating moment. An explosive burst zips down his spine, molten and staggering.  

The moan that pours like vapor from N’Jadaka’s mouth is sinful. Decadent and long and T’Challa wants to hear it for the rest of his life.

“You’re forcing me open,” N’Jadaka groans. “Got me so full, _fuck_.”

Eyes shut and mouth panting, lost to sensation, N'Jadaka arches, and T’Challa slips even deeper into the silk of him. N’Jadaka’s expression tenses, then slackens under the pleasure that depth brings.

T’Challa buries his face momentarily against N’Jadaka’s neck, the thundering pulse beating there a mirror of his own. Sliding himself out until just the head of him remains inside N’Jadaka is a long, breath-taking drag; pushing back in renders T’Challa blank all over again, shuddering with the sharp bliss of it, knowing nothing else but N'Jadaka.

“Shoulda done this ages ago,” N’Jadaka murmurs. ”Shoulda been breaking beds for years.”

“We’ll fix that,” T’Challa says. N’Jadaka laughs breathlessly. “I’ll buy many beds. I’m King now; I can get away with it.”

Fixing his hands to N’Jadaka’s hips, T’Challa abruptly flips them over. N’Jadaka lets out a choked sound, his palms smacking down onto T’Challa’s chest for balance, and T’Challa groans at the instinctive way N’Jadaka clamps down around his cock, a crackling rush coursing through him. His fingers push bruises into the fine hip-bones he’s got clutched in his uncompromising grip.

“Oh, fuck, baby, that’s _deep_ ," N'Jadaka says hoarsely. "Feel fucking huge in me, like you gonna break me.”

“You sound like you’d enjoy it if I did break you.”

N’Jadaka sinks his teeth into his lower lip. Makes a low noise in his throat that turns into, “Maybe.”

T’Challa eyes the gold and red dancing over N’Jadaka’s skin. “Ride me, N’Jadaka. I want to watch you.”

“You really like these chains, huh?”

T’Challa just hums in agreement, distracted when N’Jadaka begins moving above him, enthralled by his sweat-wet body, the dazzling paths of his jewelry where they catch the light, shadows drifting back and forth over his shoulders, by his ribs. He’s a fluid creature, hips rolling long and easy like he could keep the pace all day, strong thighs built for it. 

T’Challa can imagine trance-like hours slipping them by in a haze of heat and pleasure and N’Jadaka. “You’re a work of art,” he says, barely able to think with N'Jadaka taking his cock in so deep.

“Comes natural,” N’Jadaka sighs easily. His hands rub a slow, greedy path from T’Challa’s chest to belly and then back up again. Blunt fingernails flick quickly over T’Challa’s nipples, making him grunt, but N'Jadaka's palm is gentle at T’Challa’s side, where the touch of his khopesh sword had been vicious earlier. N’Jadaka’s wanting gaze is searing all over T’Challa, possessive. “Looks like it comes natural to you, too,” he murmurs, and rocks down, circling his hips. T’Challa fucks up into him, helps N’Jadaka find the angle he needs and N’Jadaka moans luxuriously once they do, quivers under a hard shudder. He bares the inviting line of his throat, the beads in his hair jumping with the throw of his head.

“Your dick feels so good in me,” N'Jadaka says. "Always knew it would." The low, deep, almost-purr slinking out of his throat, his own cock jerking and swaying as his hips begin their dirty, liquid roll again. He grabs at his locs with one hand, murmuring something too low for even T'Challa to catch, the other hand twisting at the nipple T'Challa had sweetly tormented.  

“I would’ve let you have this every day," T'Challa says, "if you’d only asked for it.”

“I would’ve been begging for it, if I’d let myself cave. You’re so fucking hot, I never stopped wanting you—”

“Why didn’t you just _say_ —”

“Ain’t the right kinda person for you—”

“Let me decide that for myself,” T’Challa replies swiftly, thrusting up to underline the words, a loud slap of skin against skin.

N’Jadaka jolts, digs his fingers back into T’Challa’s chest with a shuddering moan.

“You,” T’Challa continues, insistent, “kept yourself out of my reach and I accepted it, but if you let me—if you just let me, N’Jadaka—”

“What?” N’Jadaka asks, grinding down viciously onto T’Challa’s next thrust, spearing himself open with an almost pained gasp. “Let you what?”

“ _Be with you_.”

N’Jadaka grits his teeth. Shakes his head.

An entangled knot of frustration and need tightens T’Challa’s throat, but he swallows, pushes it down, refuses to force a decision out of N’Jadaka.

He demands something else instead, moving quick, rolling them over to fit their damp bodies tight together. “I haven’t forgotten,” T’Challa rumbles. “You’re going to say my name, N’Jadaka.” And he slams his hips in _hard_ , and N’Jadaka seizes up tight around him, makes the most startling, filthy sound as shock and pleasure crash against each other across his face. His hands scramble, slip frantically over the sheets, over T’Challa’s skin.

“ _Fuck_ , fuck, ah, Sekh—fuck.”

“That doesn't sound like my name at all.”

N’Jadaka’s laughter is more a series of gasps. “Didn’t I say—” he drags in another breath, "—I’d say it only if you make me?”

So T’Challa does, driving in with precise, brutal thrusts, grinding his cockhead against where he knows N’Jadaka needs it most, where it makes N’Jadaka forget his stubbornness and makes him sob and keen. He goes delirious in T’Challa’s arms, nails clawing, heels kicking into T’Challa’s back, submerged in his pleasure and yet still needing more of it.

With effort, N’Jadaka says, “You tryna wreck me—you—uhn,” but it’s all he can manage, losing his words to another long moan as T’Challa pushes into him again.

“So beautiful like this,” T’Challa says heatedly. “So beautiful. Sekhmet’s Heart, but you are also Bast’s blessing to me.”

N’Jadaka’s mouth makes a shape. A moan. Then the first syllable of T’Challa’s name. But he seals his lips, crushes the unvoiced sound into a guttural noise in his throat.

T’Challa licks along that seam, nipping gently, enticing it back into opening. “I’ll give you what you need if you just say it.” N’Jadaka’s lips part for a shivering breath. T'Challa swipes it up with his tongue. He sees the waning defiance and snaps his hips forwards, a hard stroke that demands a response. “ _Yitsho_ , N’Jadaka.”

“Fucking— _T’Challa_. T’Challa, T'Challa,” N’Jadaka pants out. “Are you—are you happy now? Fu—”

“ _Yes_ ,” T’Challa growls, and hikes N’Jadaka’s legs higher, crowding him against the bed, bending him in half in an impossible desire to shove his cock even deeper into that incredible heat.

The music of their jewelry is a chaotic jangle. N’Jadaka’s hair sings as he tosses it restlessly on the pillow, the unending clicking of the beads delicate next to the baser, sloppy sounds of their savage fucking. T’Challa captures his helplessly moaning mouth and swallows his sounds, fucks him harder, deeper, deep as he can go. It’s only animal desperation now, only ruthlessly rutting into N’Jadaka’s body, making himself a home in it.

"We could be so good together,” T’Challa whispers, meaning it.

“ _Ndiyayazi_ ,” N’Jadaka confesses, just as hushed. “ _Ndiyayazi_ , T’Challa.”

He makes a sound, soft and strangled, as if all air has left him, and his come spurts and smudges between them in ruined streaks. He shudders beneath T’Challa, rippling under the sweep of his release, hole working around T’Challa’s cock in frantic clenches.  Half-lidded and breathless, debauched and dazed, he’s entirely T’Challa’s in this moment.

T’Challa wants to draw it out for an age, but his own raw need is screaming to be satisfied, his balls hot and tight, urgent pressure in his cock that won’t abate until he leaves N’Jadaka stained inside, loose and drenched.  

“ _N’J_ — _d_ — _a_.” Barely decipherable, hurting T’Challa’s throat as it comes out. “Fuck, I can’t. I—”

N’Jadaka nods fast, face strained beautifully, in orgasm still. His mouth flits around from T’Challa’s jaw, lips, up to his temple, back to his lips for dirty, smearing licks. His scraped voice says, “Do it. Soak this hole, soak me with your come,” and he doesn’t stop talking, dragging out filth from himself to drive T’Challa on towards the edge, his rasp coiling across T’Challa’s skin: “Want everyone to smell you on me an’ know. Know I had the King’s cock spreading my ass, the King’s come still keeping me wet. Barely able to walk ‘cause I got smashed that fucking _good_ —”

T’Challa comes with a rough groan, hips jerking with each pulse, fucking stuttering thrusts into N’Jadaka. There’s a great, long, sublime thrum and roll inside him, like he’s taken the Herb all over again, things beneath the skin shifting and reorganizing themselves, only this time it is better, it is N’Jadaka doing this to him, only N’Jadaka.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he hears N’Jadaka murmur. “Give me all of it.”

T'Challa does, spending himself seemingly endlessly. He lets N’Jadaka’s legs drift down from his shoulders, but keeps himself held above, hips tight to N’Jadaka’s body, and searches for some calm, nose turned into N’Jadaka’s soft cheek, breathing harsh against the dark hair at his jaw. N’Jadaka’s scent, the heavy smell of sex, their mingled release, floods his lungs. He feels pleasantly heavy, every inch of him filled like a river with completion.

“Fuck, T,” N’Jadaka says, sounding ragged but delighted. “You do it like that every time?”

T’Challa’s chuckle is a deep noise rolling languidly out of him. “I was feeling inspired.”

“I’m gonna be the one _feeling_ it, I think.”

“Are you hurt? Was I too rough?”

“Being sore is part of the fun, but you can’t stay in me all night.”  

T’Challa’s sated, drowsy mind thinks, _why not_. He wants nothing more than to remain clutched inside N’Jadaka’s body and live cradled by his legs, head resting over the beat of N’Jadaka’s heart. “I could stay between your thighs and rule from here.”

“The Council’s really gonna appreciate you holding meetings with us naked.”

The thought of anyone else seeing N’Jadaka bare, all his magnificence unveiled, makes something mean and selfish rear its head inside T'Challa, makes him want to snarl. “I can speak with them via kimoyo beads. Only I should get to see you like this.”

N’Jadaka laughs. “Oh, I hit a nerve, did I.”

T’Challa reluctantly concedes to sense and eases himself out of N’Jadaka, the wet sound as he slides free loud and appealingly vulgar in the quiet room. A thin thread of come follows his cock out, falling against N’Jadaka’s thigh, delicately lewd. T'Challa collapses next to him, close enough for their drenched skin to stick together. “What’s your verdict, then, about my skills?” he asks.

“Guess you do fuck as good as you fight.”

T’Challa scoffs, disbelieving. “You _guess_?”

“I’ll need to repeat the experience a few more times for confirmation, obviously.”

“Obviously.”  

N’Jadaka smiles lazily, crinkles soft around his closed eyes. T’Challa can’t resist the natural impulse to take N’Jadaka’s mouth when it’s so close to his, a treasure that’s existed before his eyes for most of his life but he’s gotten to enjoy only tonight.

It’s as comfortable and leisurely as their first kiss, like the knowledge of each other had always been there, just waiting to be found. T’Challa considers never breathing again if it means letting the lusciousness of N’Jadaka’s mouth escape, but once more, he makes himself reluctantly concede to sense. Shifting on the bed, intending to rise and find a clean cloth for N’Jadaka, he stops at N’Jadaka’s soft, “Don’t,” and lets himself be pulled back by the wrist. “Leave it for now.”

N'Jadaka pulls him close again, T’Challa re-settling willingly, pleased, the primal parts of him more than satisfied to leave N’Jadaka as he is, belly and thighs sticky, the deep musk of them together rising strongly from in between N'Jadaka's legs. T’Challa still craves to learn this body, understand its nuances. What makes it shiver, what delights and fulfills it.

He tucks his head closer to N'Jadaka's throat and breathes in. Slow, deep. The rise and fall of N’Jadaka’s chest is content. Drying sweat shines in the hollow above his collarbones. T'Challa traces the fragile bone there with the tip of his finger. Fragile bone that he'd snapped today. "I hurt you," he murmurs. 

"And I hurt you," N'Jadaka says. "It was ritual combat. I ain't gonna hold that against you." 

"Let's never do that again."

"You got yourself a deal. I don't fancy getting my bones snapped again." 

"I don't fancy snapping your bones," T'Challa says. He thinks of his father’s words from the ancestral plane. N’Jadaka’s words from earlier. "But I do want to be a great king,” he says. N’Jadaka’s eyes are serene on his. “And I’m going to struggle, so I’ll need to surround myself with those I can trust. At the heart of it, N'Jadaka, you want something noble. You want freedom from oppression. I don’t need to agree with your plan to see that.”

“Needs to be more than just seeing, T’Challa.” N’Jadaka says it without heat or venom, and T'Challa feels relief at that, knowing they’ve somehow managed it at last, somehow arrived at a tranquil place between them where these things could be said plainly. “Before, you said something. You said you already cared.”

“My father,” T’Challa says, “taught me not to trust the outside world, but you were from the outside world and I couldn’t not care for you. Did you think I couldn’t see your pain? That I never felt anything when I saw others in pain? My hands were tied, same as yours. I was waiting for the day they wouldn’t be. I don’t know what made my father change his mind, but he died before he could take Wakanda in the new direction he envisioned. It’s my mission now.”

“I know a thing or two about losing a parent,” N’Jadaka says, the gentle lines of his face sympathetic. T’Challa understands at once this is what he’d glimpsed on N’Jadaka’s face before. “It was my dad’s plan, actually,” N’Jadaka continues. “I read all about it in the book he left behind. He wrote about liberation and wanting to overthrow the oppressors and have Wakanda rule the world the right way. It was a dream I wanted to carry out for him.”

T’Challa shakes his head. “Rule the world? Conquering is still conquering, no matter how good the intentions are or how benignly it is described. Work _with_ me, N’Jadaka, to achieve his dream—your dream—through other means.”

N’Jadaka turns his face away. He goes somewhere inwards, deeper into his own thoughts.

“I don’t agree with you about what we should do,” he says.

Disappointment makes T’Challa’s mouth thin and his chest grow tight. He wonders if tonight will leave them still at a stalemate despite everything they’ve shared. If they are destined to never bridge the distance between them. 

And then N’Jadaka says, “I don’t agree, and we’re gonna argue a lot about everything, but if you’re willing to help, you’re gonna need someone who’s been out there, who knows what it’s like, so...” He stares at T’Challa for a long, searching moment.

T’Challa allows it. He doesn’t push for N’Jadaka to finish, just waits calmly under the scrutiny of N’Jadaka’s gaze for him to find whatever it is he is looking for in T’Challa.

Eventually, N’Jadaka seems to find it, his hand reaching out to twine with T’Challa’s. He raises their fingers up to his face and presses his mouth to the black and silver ring that had belonged to T’Challa’s grandfather. He says nothing. The words are all in his eyes.

T’Challa sinks his free hand into N’Jadaka’s locs and bring their foreheads together. “ _Enkosi_.”

“Looking at me like I’ve just given you the moon or something,” N’Jadaka mutters.  

“You’ve given me something greater.” T’Challa touches the beads glimmering in N’Jadaka’s hair. “You really do look very beautiful tonight. I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off you.”

N’Jadaka snorts. “Do you know what you looked like? Sitting there all kingly and shit, wearing lace that hid nothing. My every wet dream come to life.”

T’Challa grins and gently fingers the beads, then the curve of N’Jadaka’s pierced ear. His fine cheekbone, his prickly jaw. The lovely bow of his mouth.

N’Jadaka observes him with open amusement. “Can’t keep your hands off me?”

“I don’t know if I’ll get to have more than one night with you,” T’Challa replies honestly and watches N’Jadaka’s smirk fade.

“I never did give you a straight answer ‘bout that.”

“You don’t have to tonight.”

“I do. I do, ‘cause you’re right, too.”

“Am I.” T’Challa pulls his hand away, but N’Jadaka grabs it, now holding both of T'Challa's in his.

“We _have_ waited long enough,” N’Jadaka says. “And that’s my fault, I know.” He pauses, then narrows his eyes at T’Challa when he stays silent. “You...ain’t gonna argue against that?”

“I’m really not, no,” T’Challa replies, laughing. “It _is_ your fault. I’m the wronged party here, if we’re being accurate.”

N’Jadaka’s mouth quirks. “A’ight, fine, I deserve that. What I’m tryna say is, if it’s not too late—”

“It isn’t,” T’Challa says, too fast and not caring that it is too fast.

“And if you’re serious about it—”

“I am.”

“—this could be for more than just one night.”

“‘Could’? Why only ‘could’?”

“Well, damn, ain’t courtship still a thing around here?”

“You know it is.”

“There’s your answer,” N’Jadaka says. His expression turns lofty. A god demanding reverence, but also the mischief-loving boy T'Challa had grown up alongside and come to adore. “You want something more between us, you gonna make a man feel special and court the hell outta me. Think you can do that, king?”

T’Challa’s smile spreads slow and wide across his face. There is only lightness in his chest now.  

“I can,” he says, entangling their fingers together. “I will, N’Jadaka.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- PROMPT: It’s tradition that the new king of Wakanda is presented with a tribute from each tribe in the form of a potential partner that the king can choose from. T'Challa chooses Erik (however he ends up to be one of the potential tributes).
> 
> \- Eternal love and gratitude to Sparrow, who graciously combed through this and made it better with her infinite wisdom. Remaining mistakes are my own for not listening to her and instead being verbose af. My love and gratitude also to my T’Jadaka crew who patiently endured my rambling about this fic and helped me decide N’Jadaka’s look! <3 
> 
> \- Xhosa translations: _siziyagquma_ is _we roar_ , _intliziyo isizwe sakwa Sekhmet_ is heart of the tribe of Sekhmet (N’Jadaka is considered A Big Deal, u guys! #respect), _yitsho_ is _say it_ , _ndiyayazi_ is _I know_ , and _enkosi_ is _thank you_. 
> 
> \- Borrowed N’Yami from the comics – how awks would it be if 616 T’Challa crash-landed in this verse and realised his biological ma is the aunt of his NEMESIS, ERIN KILIMANJARO?! – and borrowed B’Tumba, as well. Okoye is too young at the time of this fic to be General, hence OC General Mandisa. 
> 
> \- The tribe of Sekhmet are good at the fisticuffs and good at the medicine bc their goddess is a goddess of war and healing and they honour her through their dedication. V original of me, I know. 
> 
> \- Wakandan lube is magically – sorry, Shuri, _technologically_ \- everlasting and has an efficacy rating of 9000% bc something something vibranium and, as the song goes, everything we can do, Wakandans can do better. (TY, DAAN, FOR THE IDEA.) This infallible logic carries through all of my T’Jadaka fics.
> 
> \- Ref pics for some of what Erik and T'Challa are wearing -- except for N'Jadaka's body jewellery at the front, these aren't completely accurate but they give you an idea of what I was going for: [N'Jadaka's front](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1305/2819/products/Femmi_1_1024x1024.jpg?v=1465443731), [N'Jadaka's back](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/583651861/shoulder-harness-body-chains-shoulder?show_sold_out_detail=1), [T'Challa's shirt](http://justdropithere.tumblr.com/post/146343332704/serge-rigvava-haider-ackermann-ss17), [T'Challa's armpieces](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/42/62/01/426201d235f364ee52fbdb61d3d305e2.jpg). The beautiful fanart by pylomel of Erik with piercings, which was definitely a source of inspiration for the piercings he has in this fic, is [here](https://twitter.com/fier_ce_/status/987705355084881920)!
> 
> \- N'Jadaka's navel rosetta pattern is [the rosetta pattern seen on statues of Sekhmet at her breasts](https://lionofchaeronea.tumblr.com/post/151201428769/statue-of-the-ancient-egyptian-lion-goddess).
> 
> \- [The mandazi recipe I stared at for ages, yearning](https://www.africanbites.com/soft-mini-mandazi/).


End file.
